


Descension

by muldertxf



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Season 2, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 06:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13584195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muldertxf/pseuds/muldertxf
Summary: Takes place towards the beginning of season 2. Confusion and memory blanks plague Scully one Monday morning. Things don’t seem to line up. Why’s everything seem so annoyingly bright?





	1. Chapter 1

The slide projector whirred on, testing her patience. Mulder slipped another slide into the contraption.

He attempted to tamp down his excitement, but every so often his voice would pitch an awkward few octaves when he’d spew another fact about his latest find. She pretended not to notice his voice cracks, feigning a yawn every so often to half-cover them. For his sake. And her’s. The second hand embarrassment was contagious at 9 am. However, she could sympathize with his jubilation somewhat; he had known her long enough at this point to hear her little shrieks when she was examining a body and made an interesting discovery. To each their own, she supposed.

Her lanky coworker glanced up momentarily from the written notes he had been using to guide himself. Usually he didn’t need notes, but this case captivated him in a way no other had.

Sh-lick! Another slide fell into the projector.

Five Minnesota children, ages ranging only in even numbers from two to ten, had gone missing within the meager span of five days. Local authorities were at a loss of what to do, except to put out a slew of missing childrens’ signs and simply file reports. That and issue a controversial curfew. But beyond that, their hands were tied. They had no real lead to go off of. It was unfortunate.

Scully found herself staring down a piece of floppy hair that refused to stay put on Mulder’s quiffed head. It looked Elvis-esque, almost. It bobbed with his jaw. She curbed a smile, and brushed back a loose strand of red that had strayed from behind her ear.

“Scully, are you listening?” Mulder inquired, tossing his pad to a nearby desk. He sounded like one of her old Catholic school teachers. “I really need your help on this case.”

“No bodies have been found,” Scully said, standing up to dust off her baggy business suit. She glanced in the direction of his notes. “Can I see what you’ve written down?”

Mulder blew out a sigh, only slightly peeved at her. “If you’d been listening, you wouldn’t have to look…” He announced. He placed the loose leaf notebook on her shoulder, balancing it.

She slid it off, rolling her eyes. “I was listening. And I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help you. I’m assigned to this unit, anyway. It’s my job to, Mulder. Plus, even if it wasn’t…I’d still help you.” She noted the faint smile quirking his lips. “I’d find a way.”

“Alright.” He hid the smile from his face. “You know, first, I think we should talk to Mary Blaine. She’s the mother of the first missing child.”

Scully examined the pages, finally coming to the correct one. What could only be described as a pure liquidation of the english language assaulted her eye sockets. She squinted, attempting to make out his Bs from his Ds. Jesus, his handwriting is illegible, she thought.

Mulder unplugged the machine, removed the slides, and pushed the cart which held said contents to the corner of the office. He turned to her. “What time would be best for boarding a plane to Saint Paul, Scully?”

His words didn’t reach her ears.

“Scully?”

Scully blanched, her vision blurring. The book dropped the floor with a weak thunk. A clammy hand flew to her head for support, and she braced herself against a desk, suddenly exhausted.

Mulder flew to her side without a moment’s hesitation.

“Dana? Are you okay?” Mulder bit his bottom lip in worry, bringing a digit to her chin. She slowly lifted her head to meet him.

Something inside her had shifted. It was like coming home from vacation, to find your dresser a miraculous inch to the left for no explicable reason. Like waking up and having your hair seem slightly shorter. A shoe out of place. A hand where it shouldn’t be. Scully stared at him with dark eyes, and he withdrew his hand. She couldn’t read the book.

Scully cleared her throat. “Uhm,” she feigned a laugh, and looked down to her heels. Dizzy morning light glinted off the dark edges. “I…I’m fine. Thank you.”

She felt his eyes on her scalp, and blood began to rush back into her face.

Mulder took a step back to turn on the light. The office brightened immediately, and overwhelmingly, surroundings bathed in pastel. “Are you sure? Do you…want some water?” His voice creaked out the word “water” a little too enthusiastically for her.

She shook her head, wildly. “No, no. I’m fine, really. I just didn’t sleep very much last night. Sorry.”

The disorder of the room slowly settled to the carpeted floor like a shaken snow globe. She smiled. His worry lines decreased a bit.

“But you came into work late, this morning,” Mulder countered. “I thought you’d overslept.”

“I wasn’t sleeping…” Scully replied, her face made of stone. She fetched her coat off from the hook.

“I don’t sleep anymore,” Mulder said.

She didn’t miss the look of confusion that ran across her partner’s face as she made her way past him.

He followed her two steps into the hallway. A fluorescent in the hallway flickered above him in silent laughter. “W-where are you going?” He faltered, ignorant to what he’d apparently done wrong.

“Taking the day off,” His red-headed partner answered flatly with her back to him, turning the corner.

Gone.

Mulder hesitated running…then denied himself the luxury of going after her. This wasn’t a movie–a man can’t just run after a woman and demand they talk out their love. He felt his cheeks flush as he reentered his basement office alone. Their love? There was no love. It was completely platonic. Any hints that indicated otherwise had to have been fabricated in his head. That’s just the way it was. She probably hated him. Mulder looked back to the fallen notebook which sadly laid on the floor, curled spine up.

He hated him.


	2. Chapter 2

Summary: Takes place towards the beginning of season 2. Confusion and memory blanks plague Scully one Monday morning. Things don’t seem to line up. Why’s everything seem so annoyingly bright?

Genre: Angst/Drama/Mystery…..idk

Rating: PG

Racked with bizarre exhaustion, Scully slid hastily into her car and slammed the door shut.

Thunk!

The engine purred under her turned key in the ignition. She just needed some more sleep, that had to be it. Although, she couldn’t seem to remember calling into work this morning to deliver the message to A.D. Skinner that she would be late. Scully’s red lips knotted into a tight purse. She willed her mind to cooperate as she maneuvered the vehicle out of the parking building.

Damn, what had she even had for breakfast? Had she even had breakfast? A prickle of worry tapped the base of her neck. What had Mulder told her to make her pull herself out of bed this morning? She interrogated herself further: What time had he called?

At least Traffic appeared to be mostly quiet. One less thing to stress her out. She ceased the self-probing, and adjusted the mirror. It is August 8th, 1994. It’s Monday. Bill Clinton is president. She winced as the overbearing sun glare dug into her mirror, and she turned it away from herself. I’m fine.

A palm left the steering wheel to finger the pulse on her neck. Then the other pulse on her wrist. Normal. She slipped into a grin, relinquishing a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. Mulder’s starting to rub off on me, she thought.

She ignored the dull throb that pulsated in the back of her neck.

For the first time in ages, it felt as if Scully had reached a destination with no quarrels or debates about the plausibility of supernatural events. She’d been all over him, lately. This was probably for the best, anyway. They could stand some time apart.

The dizzying sensation she had felt at the Bureau had not reared its ugly head again, luckily. But she didn’t want to chance it–so with a few swift wrist flicks, she tugged all the curtains shut to let herself be shrouded in darkness. She needed it to be dark.

Except it wasn’t.

Her eyebrows furrowed in frustration. She had closed every curtain and door, and yet mischievous white light still pooled on her sofa. Her eyes desperately searched for the troublesome source. And finally, just in the corner, her glare landed on a tall, checkered lampshade that oozed white. Her mother had given it to her as a housewarming gift three years ago. Scully had to admit, it was sort of tacky and didn’t fit the decor of her home at all. She usually turned it off before going to work each morning and pretended it didn’t exist. But there it stood now, shining defiantly.

She crossed her arms, and lugged herself to the dreaded light fixture, coiling a firm grip on the beaded string. She tugged it down. Nothing happened.

Scully stared at the thing in pure befuddlement.

Generous pale light choked her, and she squinted away from it. Did it get brighter? It looked as if the moon were hiding in her lampshade.

“Oh God,” She mumbled, gritting her teeth. The dizziness, though not as strong as before, began to make its presence known once again. She cursed her luck, and sat on the hardwood. Her head thumped against the side of her couch in exasperation as she leaned against it from the floor. “…The hell is going on?”

Things only seemed to get weirder and weirder. Maybe spookier was the word. The dizziness had now morphed into a sense of déjà vu. She exhaled loudly, the sigh bouncing off couch cushions. The lamp did not get brighter. The switch was probably broken. The red-head shoved a pillow in those paranoid thoughts. No, the thing was pretty cheap. Scully chastised herself, it should be no surprise that it had broken. She tugged her hunched self from the hunched posture she had fallen into, and eyed the plug warily. Darkness would be nice…

…And so the plug soon got yanked from its socket. The metal prongs on the end of the cord made a nearly silent whump noise as it hit the floor. It was done–unplugged.

Riiing! Riiii-iing!

The phone threw a life raft. She swam to it, shakily hugging the receiver to her ear. A longing for normalcy wracked her frame.

“Scully,” she said, talking away from the lamp.

“Scully, it’s me,” replied an eager voice on the other end.

She let herself sink into her couch in relief, sighing. But then heat surged to her face, for fear that he might have heard it. Thankfully, no remark about it was made if Mulder in fact had heard it. He instead asked Scully if she’d like to talk about the case they had spoken of earlier.

Scully nodded. The tight hitch of her fingers on the phone loosened.

“Yes.”

Scully could read his voice quite clear by this point. Probably sensing that something was wrong–but knowing she wasn’t the type to openly admit it–he chatted about everything but her. The monotone drone of his voice piecing together evidence was calming. Reassuring. And so he kept rambling about the case.

She could tell he’d spent a lot of time brooding over the casefile. In his classic dry speech, he spoke of age patterns. How their next suspect was likely to be a twelve year old, thus following the recurring age pattern. And Mulder himself had made the connection that every kidnapped child had lived on a street that started with the letter ‘T’. The cogs were already turning. She was glad something made sense for him, at least.

“This all seems highly coincidental, Mulder,” Scully spoke into the phone, sinking further into a cushion.

Mulder switched the phone to his other ear. He paced his apartment.

“And all kids were abducted at night. One day apart. The latest victim…a Sarah Parker, aged 10, disappeared today…so…if I’m correct, it’s to strike again tonight.”

It?

“Well what do you think it is?” Scully asked.

There was a long pause. She suddenly wondered if he’d hung up his cellular phone by accident. But then he spoke again.

“You’ll be happy to know I don’t believe that it’s aliens this time,” He laughed. “But I think it might be trolls.” He said this with such conviction that Scully giggled at it. A frown twitched his lips. “The street names all beginning with T, as in troll, the child-stealing–something trolls are known to do…and the ages. Very specific. I’m trying to get a feel for it, and I know what you’re thinking…”

“Let’s forget the street names. You don’t think it’s a pedophile?”

“No. No, I don’t get that sense at all.”

“And why is that?”

Breathe heavily heaved on the other side for a few seconds, as if he were lifting something heavy. “…I just have this feeling.”

Scully rolled her eyes, hanging up the phone.

Warm light stung her. Every which way she turned, something felt illuminated. Too bright. It would frighten her if it didn’t annoy her so much. Even after Mulder had spoken to her last night and she had hung up, the house had sat moonlit. There appeared to be no respite from the light. And something weird, notable–she’d dreamt of her father last night.

When she arrived to work, Mulder was not at the bureau early like usual. Baffling. She had beaten him for once.

Scully’s heels uttered muffled clacks against the flooring, as she made her way to place a book in front of a basement window. Carefully, she stepped over the spiral notebook. It seemed that’s all she’d been doing since yesterday. Shielding herself from light, as if she were some damn vampire. Maybe her eyes needed to be checked. The sense that something was not as it seemed still gnawed at her insides, like an animal, but she ignored it.

Her gaze fixed on the spiral notebook. Kneeling down, she plucked it from its resting place and flipped it open to make another attempt at reviewing her partner’s written notes.

The bleary feeling began to cross her frame again.

It was blank.


	3. Chapter 3

Pathetic, hazy strings of yellow spilled across Mulder’s worry-grooved forehead through closed blinds, while the dizzy fishtank in the corner bubbled on, casting a cold tint to his hunched back. His feet muzzily socked some stray masking tape, and then he was idle once more.

A whirlwind of anxiety had ransacked the small room. Discarded file folders, their contents empty, settled beneath his leather couch like moths, their paper wings tired. Hurled books dotted the disaster’s perimeter. An ancient library copy of The Hunter’s Guide to Trolls sat cracked open, the spine hanging by mere thread on the edge of the leather couch. There was no doubt, that by morning the book would split in two, one side dangling from the leathery cliff, the bright innards struggling to hold on to what little bonding it had left, before finally descending to the wood in a broken cloud of dust. More fuel for the eternal tumbleweed of overdue library books to never be brought up again. When this case was over, he had to find another library to roam. Which meant another stupid library card. A fully stocked drawer of them hid in his desk, this was yet another thing to be ashamed of. Guilty of. Another thing to never share with his partner.

Said storm also had a deviance for tossing exhausted bystanders into beaten desk chairs.

Mulder was trapped in the throes of a fitful REM slumber. His heart screamed, rapping in his chest like clenched fists, trying to break free. Dream trolls roamed his mind, gyrating to the rhythm of his fear. Bump-ba-bump. Bump-ba-bump. Fear for his partner kindled.

The back of a head came into view, as mysterious fog parted over the silhouette. Distant strawberry-blonde hair flogged limply like a torn flag.

Scully!

The library book on the sofa snapped. Half of its severed corpse thumped loudly next to the coffee table. The shock winded him, and he panted into stillness, his jaw sore from excessive clenching. He tore his face from the disheveled desk, and he noted the sweat plastering his brows.

Another nightmare, Mulder silently moaned, rousing himself from the desk chair. Still, he thought, it wouldn’t hurt to call her. To talk about the case again, of course. Just that. Only.

What sounded to be a newspaper slugged the base of his apartment door as he blindly felt for a light switch. He suddenly paused. Confusion struck him. It couldn’t be. Cryptid Weekly never arrived at 5 AM befo…

 

Mulder caught a glimpse of his wristwatch.

“Shoot!”

Fresh adrenaline blinded and stung the corners of Mulder’s eyes. He blinked the salt away. She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine, he crooned to himself.

He tore the blinds up and open, shaking his head to clear the mind. To make the paranoia fall out like the parasite it was. Crisp morning light now flooded the apartment, as overcast as it was. One by one, he jerked his limbs through his work uniform–a fine Armani suit he’d bought with three months of pay. And a little help from dad, of course.

Mulder’s lip bled slightly from anxious nibbling. Though this was lost on him, as he put on a bright green tie adorned with red and blue diamonds, leaving his apartment behind with an obnoxious slam. The drive over to the bureau thankfully loosened the paranoia chokehold.

A sigh of relief exited his lips when Scully’s head flew up to meet him.

She raised her eyebrows. “You’re late.”

“I know, and I’m sorry…” He panted, gritting his teeth to stifle it.

“Did you run here?”

“…Yeah, across the parking garage,” Mulder said, a grin slowly taking over his features. “anything for you, Scully.”

Scully’s cheeks flushed a highlighter pink.

“Well…” She trailed off, suddenly losing her train of thought. “Good. We can still catch our plane then, right?”

“Right.”

An unseasonal, bittersweet draft slinked in from a cracked basement window. Both subconsciously read that as a cue to move in the direction of the door. Mulder lingered, hesitant to let Scully out of his sight. He knew it was foolish, it was just a dream, after all. Just a dream.

Scully eyeballed her neatly packed leather suitcase that sat by her toes. She couldn’t help but feel she was failing to recall something. Then her gaze fell to the blank notebook. Innocent yet seemingly complacent, there it sat washed in saturated basement light on Mulder’s desk. She bit her lip.

“Hey, what did you do with those notes you took?” Scully casually broached, gesturing to the notepad. She awaited his response eagerly, but at the same time ashamed. It was clear Agent Mulder didn’t want her to see the notes. He’d likely ripped them out after she stormed from the office the other day. There was nothing to read into. And yet, she found herself staring deeply into him, as if he were a specimen she’d been assigned to prod and dissect.

Mulder’s brows lifted briefly. He then squinted, not quite looking at her, but not quite past her, either. His lips parted as if to speak, but then he stopped.

His silence was beginning to annoy her now. She dove in, slapping her latex gloves on. “That notebook. I assume you tore out the pages you wrote on. What did you do with them? I was hoping to review them on the plane, if that’s alright.”

Mulder looked at her quizzically.

She continued, “Look, I know you don’t want me to look at it. For whatever reason. But I need to see it to help get a better understanding. So if you could just-”

“I never took any notes, Scully. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He said with a chuckle that shook her. Picking up his suitcase again, “If I had written any, I’d certainly let you see them. You don’t think I’m that petty, do you?”

She simply stared at him, as the edges of the room took to blurring as if it were in a kaleidoscope.

“Scully?”

And that’s when it went dark.


	4. Chapter 4

“Jesus!” Scully screamed, her voice muffled as if underwater.

“Relax, the power’s just gone out, Scully,” Mulder breathed into her ear, “likely due to the storm.”

Then why don’t I feel any safer? Scully had wanted scream. She didn’t remember rain at all. The sky was bright, cloudless, and a choked blue. Nothing of which spelled out thunderstorm. It just seemed so sudden. However, she wasn’t a meteorologist, but a pathologist. What did she know? The ceiling panels pressed into her cheekbones, causing her partner’s tossed up pencils to stab her, drawing blood.

As if on cue, thunder ramped up above them. Carpet rocked beneath their feet like a wobbly dock. Claustrophobia slithered up Scully’s small spine, sinking its teeth deep into her neck. Mulder heard her try to manage her breathing, and slid a warm palm to her chilly back. He began rubbing slowly, carefully, as if reversing an imaginary wind up key in her back. Scully’s posture finally relaxed, as did her breathing, for the time being.

Scully sighed, head dreadfully dug into her hands. “What time is our flight?”

Mulder quietly removed his hand from her clothed back, like the pull of a tide. It’d be there again soon. He hoped, at least.

“Uh, it…was 10 AM.”

“Was?”

“We don’t have a reliable light source in here, otherwise I would check my wristwatch. But I think it’s safe to say we missed it. I’m sorry.” Mulder couldn’t resist pressing a hand to her back again, and rubbed it tenderly for a moment. “I’m really sorry.”

Scully felt his apologetic gaze aimed at her, even cloaked in thick blackness. Boring right into the center of her face, she took a sharp inhale of dank basement air, as if to absorb it. The air and him. He needn’t feel guilty, she felt.

“You were more interested in this case than me. There’s always another flight we can catch.” Scully said, making an attempt to comfort him.

This time it was her who rested a palm on the other’s back. Mulder didn’t flinch at the sudden contact like she thought he might. Instead, he brought himself closer to her. The ice shards that had lodged themselves into Scully became less evident, now, as the blood drawn from pencils evaporated from her cheeks. The ceiling mosied back into position. Pounding rain tapered off into measured tapping on the windows. Hardly noticeable.

“Agent Mulder,” Scully said strongly, and took professionalism into the palm of her hand, and brandished it as a shield. “Can I be honest with you?”

She could almost hear his eyes light up.

“Of course.”

Scully delayed verbalizing her fears, pausing to gnaw on the inside of her cheek. She slid her palm down and off the smooth slope of her partner’s back. Her breathing slowed…

“What is the name of the person we’re to interrogate first in this case?”

“Scully, I thought you said–”

“Just answer my question.”

Mulder had to collect himself, and think for a minute. He snapped his fingers, the sound catching the air like a match that failed to light up the room. “Right. Uh, that would be Jane Gary.”

Scully’s laugh nearly startled him. It was one that sounded more like choking than of hilarity.

“No, Mary Blaine.”

“I didn’t…”

“Mulder! That’s what you told me just yesterday. What is this? Some kind of joke?” She spat at him, and gritted her teeth. Acid leaching into her voice, “Nothing is making sense! I just–”

The lights quietly bubbled on above them, then came back full force, shining a spotlight on just the two of them. Color was faint in the office, everything once more bathed in a languid paste. Neither seemed to notice. Stark silence further diluted any lingering color, and the two agents’ eyes locked on one another. Those only seemed to out last the plaguing desaturation. Blue and green.

“I feel like I have no one, right now. Nothing makes sense.”

Mulder placed an ice cold grip on her shoulder.

“But I’m here.”

Scully stared at him, her eyes gaping as if they might pop out and roll beneath his desk. Burning panic sizzled in her heels. And with that, she simply shrugged off his arm and he went on his way and out the door, presumably to their rental car. The hum of a generator soon became apparent. Squinting against the abrasive light, and holstering her gun into her belt, Dana Scully knew one thing.

This was not Fox Mulder.


	5. Chapter 5

Scully had only known him for two years. But in this short stretch, she had come to know a man of great mental strength and always with a special vigor for things of the supernatural. This Mulder appeared too melancholy. Too accepting. He constantly drawled his words on, like the white strip of paint that danced on the roadside outside the rental car window. His interest came in brief tufts of gray like nimbostratus that lingered over a fatigued horizon line. There were fleeting moments where Scully could discern the Mulder she believed she knew from this one, of course.

Sometimes, his clouds would part to show spots of red and purple–the colors of rage and mystique. He was hiding something. This Mulder was. This made the drive to the airport about as pleasant as a game of Jenga played blindfolded, which was something Scully now attempted to ponder, as she stared out the window, across winding streets and buildings she’d somehow never seen before in D.C. Jenga was a game her family enjoyed playing way back when. Her older brother Bill would always mysteriously come down with a terrible bout of allergies just when her and Melissa’s tower began to wobble on its last blocks.

Mulder cracked the mirror to face towards himself more. Stubble flecked his cheeks in small patches, and he rubbed his chin tenderly. The car slowed for a red light. Purplish rings hung beneath his eyes like those of an an old tree, which is something he didn’t notice, but Scully did. A callous driver honked behind them.

Scully lifted her head from her arm, turning to face him. “We almost there? I’m starting to feel pretty claustrophobic.”

“Yeah, actually, this is it…” Mulder monotoned, lifting his gaze from the road to her. He gawked for a second too long at her, his eyes falling below her chin. His partner sported a bare neck, her infamous golden cross seemingly absent. His throat clenched, and he focused back on the road.

Finally, they pulled into the congested parking lot, parked the rental, and were ready to go with their luggage.

Scully was halted by a firm hold on her shoulder. She jumped, swerving around to see her tall captor. “What, Mulder?”

“You forgot your coat,” Mulder said, brandishing a certain mint-pink-purple overcoat in front of her. His brows rose. “You gonna take it? It can get chilly where we’re going.”

“This is what I wore when we investigated those deadly bugs about a year ago…” Scully shivered at the nightmare. “But I burned it. I burned it.”

Mulder gauged the plausibility of this statement with a hefty shake of the tacky coat. The material in it produced a scraping sound. Not burned. With the thing heavily draping from his fingers, he simply shoved it into her arms. “Come on, we’re going to be late to our flight.”

Scully skittered across the tar like a tossed pebble to keep pace with him, at first struggling, but then making peace with her heels. She nearly beat him to the door, but then he threw it open for her. She refused to don the cursed coat, too paranoid to ignore the prospect of lingering bugs in coat pockets. Their glow may be out, but they could still be there.

The yellow tag she had penned “DKS” on in Sharpie popped from the neck of the coat as they made their way to the gate. She shoved it back in.

Impossible, she thought.

A taller, older man stopped her from going in. The man would have to go through her bags. He didn’t explain why.

A sudden ferocity overtook Mulder, and Scully’s face went pink. They practically had to force him back into line. As he was quickly ushered into the plane with the rest of the passengers, she fought the urge to plug her ears. This was too much.

“Why her? Why her and not me? Answer me!”

He was cut off by a guard, and a sharp slap bouncing off linoleum told her how.

Her coat was riffled through. No bugs.

 

Fresh cotton overtook the blue that they sailed in, the pleasant voice of the pilot taking them higher and higher away from reality. A busty, brunette air stewardess offered them drinks, both agents politely declined. The lanky woman stumbled a bit on her clearly too tall heels as she marched towards the curtains at the end of the seats. Scully bit back a sly grin, knowing she was superior in that department. But it wasn’t fair. Not everyone broke in their new shoes by chasing cryptids down misty alleys. The stewardess corrected herself quickly, likely sensing eyes on her, and went into a catwalk stride again. She disappeared behind the curtains; a magician finished with their act. The audience wasn’t very receptive, though.

Mulder’s eyes on the flight were completely, and unforgivably, a deep brown. Scully noticed this, and nudged him to get a better look. His head turned fully to her now, and she took in the earthy color his irises had become muddled with. Mulder then cocked his head slightly, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

Scully’s ears rang. Her hand was over her gun.

“Fox, tell me something.”

The man sucked in his lips, biting both of them. The chessboard was turned to her now.

Scully flew up from her seat. The lights in the plane increased dramatically. She blinked away tears from her eyes’ straining. Her heels’ stomps were muffled by thin carpet as trudged cautiously and rigidly into the aisle.

Mulder stared straight into the barrel.

“Scully! What are you doing?” He shrieked, raising his arms instinctively. The green had filtered back into his eyes. She began to wonder if she had imagined it this whole time.

No, she comforted herself. This is not him. This is not…him!

 

The dreaded dizziness started to seep into her bones again, but she quickly discarded it with a hasty shake of her head. It was only then, that she noticed all other passengers’ faces were out of focus, as if trapped in a bleary black and white photograph. Bokeh anxiously quarreled around the frozen people like hazes of insects. Scully’s sight slowly wound all the way back at her partner. He was normal. Everyone else was not. She was not.

Ker-thump! The gun slipped to the floor.

“Your gun,” Mulder pointed out, eyeballing the weapon by her feet. “Wait…”

She looked to him tiredly, then rested her head in her left palm, leaning on the arm rest. Scully sat close beside him now.

Mulder looked across the cabin at the scrambled faces. Fear butterflied across his features. Scully recognized it immediately. He rose cautiously, drawing his weapon.

“So it’s not just me?” Scully asked him.

“No…no, I see it too.” Mulder replied, trying to shoot his weapon. Empty clicking rolled out from the small barrel. He prodded it, opening the bullet compartment. A barrage of black bullets noisily thudded to his shoes and rolled under their seats. He slowly looked down at Scully.

She blinked back at him.

Mulder removed a loose leaf notepad from his luggage. The very same one he had written on that he had previously denied existed. He then began meticulously scrawling something in it in red pen. When finished, he held it up to Scully. “Can you read this?”

She fidgeted uneasily. “No.”

Mulder became more assured it seemed. Then his eyes darted around the cabin anxiously.

“What are you looking for?”

“A mirror! And I know the restroom here conveniently doesn’t have one.”

Scully jumped to retrieve her suitcase from the luggage shelf above the seats. That never worked. And yet somehow, this time, it did. She stood there slightly stunned, blankly looking at the object in her grasp now. Mulder tore the thing from her hands, and clicked it open. Articles of clothing dropped into the aisle, along with blank paper. She picked it up, her own perspiration dampening the paper.

“Mulder, this paper’s blank, I–I printed a fax that was sent to us about this case, and put it here, but not, it’s just…” She trailed off when she saw him closely scrutinizing her make-up compact. “Now is not the time to get into make-up, partner.”

“Have you…heard of a certain theory?” He asked, plopping the compact into her hand.

“What?”

“Look in the mirror, Scully.”

Nothing was there.


	6. Chapter 6

Scully couldn’t recall how they had left the flight, or retrieved their luggage. Yet, there they were, in a seedy motel room, a silvered sky bleaching the interior an overwhelming gray. She shivered and crossed the curtains. It didn’t do much.

The shag carpet began to melt into the legs of the dark armchair in the corner.

Her vision began to muddle again, and so she shook the bleeding visuals from her head with a teeth-gritted sigh, warily turning to her partner.

“We have to get you out of here,” Mulder said, indicating a space just above her ear with his pointer finger. She gawked at him, the physical contact still feeling rather inappropriate. He was too comfortable with her, this didn’t feel like him. “We’re in your subconscious, Agent Scully. Staying here for too long is dangerous. You have to fight. Face your attacker.”

The back of her neck pulsed with every word he spoke.

“My attacker? What are you talking about!” She exclaimed in utter disbelief. “We’re here to crack a case, aren’t we? Are we not? Mulder, none of this, anything--is making sense. Where is this coming from?” Her palm slid coyly around the handle of her federal issued pistol as she shook her head.

“Skyland m…” Mulder trailed off, hoping Scully could puzzle together the rest of the phrase. “

Her weapon hit the floor with a cushioned thud of defeat. “I’m so tired of this!” She blinked back tears. She would not let her partner see her cry. She was not weak.

The motel lamps in the room flickered in challenge, and the foundation beneath both agents rocked as if they were at sea. Scully looked down in an attempt to steady herself. She focused on the rapidly darkening edge of the motel rug she stood on. It was all too surreal. Her eyes widened, brows shooting up. She yanked her heel off the confusing fabric, and darted to the bathroom, slamming the shabby, chipped door.

The wallpaper in here at least harbored some comfort, as it was the very same wallpaper her mother tiled her own kitchen with. Her sister missy had helped. Scully’s gaze shot expectantly to the area above the sink for a mirror, and was surprised to find a public bathroom absent of a mirror.

Her partner rapped against the thin door, every vibration making itself painfully present in her neck. “Scully?”

Scully started at the sound, and tried to soothe her own breathing again. The faint light in the bathroom grew even fainter. Mulder’s knocks ceased. Slowly, Scully’s head trailed to the weak light bulb that hung by a wire in the ceiling.

It flicked out, encasing her in a thick black.

======================================================

When the crackling static in her ears had begun to cease, the dark clouds parting to reveal a hill, she realized just where she was. Sour wind stirred leaves from the ground, and kicked them up to the heavens as if to see just how far they’d go. Fabric stretched stiffly across her lips gagged her. The hand around her forearm tightened, and she was shoved further up the hill.

“They’re not gonna take me. They can’t take ‘ol Duane Barry. I’ve done my time!” Screaming and nearly thrashing his own body, as if he were the one tied and smothered by cheap cloth, he pulled Scully again. They darted into the dying brush, then were out again. 

Higher.

A low discord of grief provided the soundtrack to Scully’s involuntary safari trek across Skyland Mountain. Cicadas sang. Shrill, masculine shrieks reverberated off tree trunks. Soon there were no trees. The sky felt as if it should be green, but it wasn’t. Scully bit the fabric that choked her with all her might as she was pitched with a heavy hand to a shallow ditch. Her chest hit the dirt with a sharp thud. Something in it reminded her of the times her brothers would wrestle with her as a kid. Melissa never partook in it. The hand shoved her face further into the damp soil. And for good reason, she thought, coughing on mulch.

The darkness overtook Scully, strangling her bitterly and saltily.

“She’s here,” A muffled voice said, setting down an object that shook the ground as he dropped it.

Another voice. “You got one? More females?” This one, gruff, made Scully’s skin crawl worse than the spider she definitely felt inching up her left ankle. “Into the train car.”

 

Into the train car. The words echoed in her head like a maddening chorus. Train car.

“You won’t remember this,” another voice rasped in her ear.

Something sailed through the darkness, distracting her from the metallic tang in her mouth. Thwack! The scrape of an old engine rattled her abductor’s ears.

“Keep them strapped in!” A figure instructed.

A train’s whistle drained them out.

Her head rested on a pillow. Melissa was by her side, her mother beaming from ear to ear. So much had happened, and at the same time, didn’t. She blinked tears from her eyes. Of happiness, or grief, she couldn’t tell. The hospital blankets were thin, a robin’s egg blue. From the hallway, behind her room’s closed door, the squeak of white shoes kept her awake and alert. She had returned. It was not stiflingly bright either, and the fluorescents sat generously dimmed. The only darkness lied in the violets beside her bed.

The plastic crinkled in laughter as her sister removed the flowers and placed them into a pink vase with great care. Melissa looked to her with a look of almost relief, as did her mother. Scully smiled, her mother’s warm laughter filling her ears like a sweet cider.

“...Brought you a present. ‘Superstars of the Super Bowl.’”

Scully looked to her partner, and he slid a tape into her palms. She eyed it, not really looking at it, her thoughts elsewhere. The plastic case in her hands still clung to Mulder’s body heat. He had held it under his arm for some time.

“I knew there was a reason to live.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't exactly planned out....so if it's messy at parts I'm sorry. Hope it was at least enjoyable though :)


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